It's Almost Fair Time

Good Saturday morning friends!  I'm so sorry I've been away for awhile but this is fair/rodeo organizing and planning week.  Since I'm the superintendent for the Stamping and Scrapbooking area I've been busy getting that organized.  I decided to go as all out as I could on my decorations/education piece for my area this year and thought I'd share it with you all!

 My area is a small area as entries have gone down drastically in the last several years however this year they are actually up from last year...yay!  My display is 9' x 5'.  The theme for the fair is there's magic in the fair and the official fair poster has magical pumpkins and a wand so I just incorporated that into my piece.  The pumpkins and magical word are files from Miss Kate Cuttables and the wand, scrapbook page layout, and card layout are from SVG Cutting Files. 

 Here is a view from a little further away.  I have sparkles on the end of my behemoth of a display stand and twinkle lights on top of it.  This display took lots of time and some help from my hubby to put it together and get it up there.  (I fell directly on my knees a couple of weeks ago so I can't kneel down.) 

I'm hoping everyone who walks through our building will love the display and be inspired to try something crafty. Well, I'm off to do some other volunteering today so I must run.  Have a great weekend everyone!

MHK Designs August Challenge

Good morning friends!  What a great week of new releases from MHK Designs last week!  Today I'm here to share with you the MHK Designs August Challenge and what a pretty one it is!

 For my card I decided to use the Tulip of Thanks set and color my tulip purple using yellow as a accent color through a paper from the French Country paper pack. 

It was super hard to get a great photo of this card so please forgive me.  As you can see I sized the tulip image to fit fully on a 3 3/4"x 5" piece of white cardstock, printed the 'country star yellow' cardstock and layered it saving some for the sentiment banner on the front.  Then I got to work coloring my tulip.  I added some blue around the outside of the tulip for some drama (I think it worked!) and finally added a few pearls on the card draw it all together.

I hope you'll hop on over to the MHK Designs blog and play along with our challenge...there are prizes to be won! And if you use MHK Designs products it is anything goes!

New Releases with MHK Designs - Halloween Party

Hello!  Welcome to day four of the MHK Design new releases for August!  Today we are featuring a set called Halloween Party.  Here is what the entire set looks like:

Isn't that vintage image just the cutest?  I've always loved the halloween cards you can find at flea markets and antique stores!  Onto my project for today...a candy box:

As you can see I sized my image down to about 2"x1 1/2", so pretty tiny, and colored the image with Copics.  Being that the image was so tiny there isn't as much detail in the coloring...I even had to use my OttLite magnifying glass to make sure I could see the lines fully.  The box is a baker's box that I cut on my Big Shot with a thinlits die.  I love the little bit of whimsy that the spider web (I didn't want the box to be scary at all so I used white paper) and twine add.

Now, don't forget to head on over the MHK Designs blog to check out what the other crazy talented design team members made for today and make sure you get in on your chance to win one of the awesome new release sets!

For my host...

I've started a new career with The Traveling Vineyard, a wonderful company that brings wine tasting experience to your home so you can enjoy the experience with family and friends.  I want to give my hosts a special little something for inviting everyone into their home so I made these fun wine tags.

I'll be telling them to place the tag on their last bottle of Traveling Vineyard wine so when they open that last bottle they have my contact information at their finger tips  so they can re-order their favorites!

I typed up my contact info in Word on my computer and used the following products to make these tags. I used Jaded Blossom's Wine Tag Die, Party Splatter stamps, Wine-O'Clock stamps, and SVG Cutting Files Kawaii Wine Glasses file.  The wine glasses are made with a clear sheet of acetate for a more realistic-ish look.  Seriously they turned out so much better than I thought they would!

Thanks for stopping by!

New Releases with MHK Designs - Beautiful Bottles

Today is day two of the August release with MHK Designs.  Today we are showcasing the new digital stamp set Beautiful Bottles.  I LOVE this set and I know you will too!  First, a look at the entire stamp set:

I'm not sure why I'm drawn to this set so much but maybe it is because it reminds me of my mom and grandma...they had similar bottles that sat on their vanities (I actually received the vanity I remember my mom using when I was a child after she died...I don't have it in my home yet but someday I will!).  Here is the card I made with this set:

I chose to go very clean & Simple for this card.  The smaller bottle reminded me of an amber bottle my grandmother had so I did my best to color it to resemble amber and then added some purple accents to go with the lavender salts theme.  I used a sentiment from the Tulip of Thanks set on this card and then added a couple of pearls to finish it off. 

Now...make sure you head on over to the MHK Designs blog to check out what the other designs have made for this release set and for a chance to win a new release set as well!

Exciting News!

I'm super excited to share with you that I am now on the MHK Designs creative team!  I'm am honored to be a part of this talented team!  I get to start right away creating with them as this week is new release week!  So I'll be back tomorrow to show you one of our new release sets!  In the meantime here are a couple of cards I've made with MHK Designs digital stamp sets:

And if you are hopping along with today's new releases here is the set we are introducing today!

Miriam, a strong woman of God...blogging for books.

Good morning friends!  Awhile back I used to do something called Blogging for Books.  It is exactly what it sounds like...you read a book, blog about it, and you get another book (of your choice from a limited pool of books) to read and blog about.   For whatever reason Blogging for Books came up in my mind again about 3 weeks ago so I went to the website, signed in, ordered a book and here I am to tell you all about it!  I don't read much outside of the Bible itself and Bible Study books so it was refreshing to get to read a novel.

The book I chose to read is called Miriam and is by Mesu Andrews.  I love historical fiction and that is what category I'd put this book in.  The setting begins in Egypt after Moses has fled.  The book centers around Moses' sister, Miriam and her nephew Eleazar.  This is why I love this book.  The author has masterfully, and with great detail, weaved the story of Moses, the plagues, and Israel's exile into a wonderful story with additional characters which just might give us a look at what the Israelites went through day in and day out in Egypt.  I loved the character development of Mariam throughout the book (can't say much more than that...don't want to give it away) as I definitely wish for more info about the women of the Bible.

More info about the book HERE and about the author HERE.   I won't say much more than that other than...go ahead and get a copy for yourself...I think you'll enjoy it!

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Hippie Birthday!

Good morning!  I'm back from a trip away with my hubby for our 15th wedding anniversary and finally back into the normal routine of things...yay! Today I thought I'd share a card I made with a new Imagine That Digistamp called HippieAud.  My goodness this image and the sentiments are so fun! 

I used the hippiest paper that I could find (bright colors and a large print on the top layering piece) and colored her the best I could to coordinate.  I gotta tell you...I think she is cute and I love this card!  For the piece signs I just cropped the image, flipped the hand and then printed them, colored them and tahdah!

Now remember...we have a blog challenge and a Facebook challenge going on (they are completely different challenges) so make sure you check them both out!